I Have Called You by Name

The Gospel for Tuesday of Holy Week is one of several Resurrection appearance of Jesus. 

"But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.' Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.' Jesus said to her, 'Mary'" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabboni!' (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord'; and she told them that he had said these things to her." John 20:11-18

Jesus had given Mary Magdalene a new direction for her life, drawing her out of a life of sin. Imagine her sorrow over His passion and death. Where was she to go now? Her Beloved had been taken away from her, and now she is at His grave. But the body of her Beloved is not there. So she sits there weeping. Two angels ask her why she weeps but she must not see them through her tears and only bewails the loss of her Beloved. She is focused on what He was to Her. 

Jesus Himself then asks her the same question, but in addition, He asks her, "Whom are you looking for?" Mary turns to Him but still crying, she does not recognize Him through her tears. Or is that the only reason, she doesn't know Jesus? Is she still looking for the body of Jesus, clinging only to what she has seen and touched. Finally, Jesus draws her to Himself when He calls her by name. Mary turns to Him a second time and immediately recognizes WHO has spoken to her. Mary has experienced a conversion from looking for Jesus the man to recognizing Jesus, the risen Christ. Perhaps she recalls the passage from the prophet Isaiah that says,

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine....I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. ... I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. . . .Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" Isaiah 43:1, 11, 15, 19

By this time, Mary must be clinging to Jesus, for He says to her, "Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father." Jesus reveals to her that they have the same Father. What a revelation to take back to the disciples!

Do we not sometimes find ourselves disillusioned, weeping in the garden? But will Jesus not draw us into His plan? As humans, we can be filled with disappointment and sadness when things do not go as we have imagined. But God has a plan much greater than we can imagine. Let us focus on Who Jesus is for us as well as what He did for us. Then, as with Mary, true conversion can take place. Let us proclaim Jesus, the Risen Lord, who fills us with consolation, for He is Lord of heaven and earth.

 

Easter People

As Catholics, we are an Easter people. And we don't just celebrate Easter with eggs and baby chicks and Easter bunnies, although these things are representative of spring and the new life that the season brings. What we, as Christians, are celebrating is the New Life Jesus brings through His passion, death and Resurrection. It reminds me that Jesus not only called Himself the Resurrection and the Life, but the Bread of Life. Only through Him can we have the life He promised.

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;" John 6:68

These are the words of Peter to Jesus following His Bread of Life discourse in the Gospel of John. Jesus is not only the Resurrection and the Life. In John 6, He calls Himself the Bread of Life. We either accept Jesus' words when He tells us that He is the Bread of Life, or we don't. He didn't say, "I AM LIKE the bread of life." He said,  

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever." John 6: 53-58

 When many of those who had been following Jesus heard this, they turned away because it was a hard saying; they could not listen to it. When they heard His voice, they hardened their hearts. But notice that Jesus did not say, "Come back. That's not what I meant. I was speaking figuratively." His response to their leaving was to turn to the twelve and ask, "Do you also wish to go away?" and Peter responds, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

So, when we receive Holy Communion, what are we receiving? We receive HIM - the Lamb of God - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity! Jesus is the Passover Lamb. At Passover, the lamb was completely consumed. Jesus is the New Passover Lamb. Shall we not eat and drink as He commanded us to do?

At Passover, four cups of wine were drunk. At the Last Supper, Jesus did not drink of the 4th cup, but immediately entered into His passion, the cup He refers to in the garden of Gethsemane. He waited until He was on the cross and in His thirst, Jesus cried out, "I thirst." His thirst was more than a physical one. Jesus' thirst was also for souls, Jesus drank when given wine and said, "It is finished." He was saying that the Passover meal was finished. The Passover Cup of Blessing was Jesus cup of suffering and our blessing. He drank fully from the cup the Father gave Him and when He had done this, He gave up His spirit.

Easter is too great a feast to be contained in a single day, so we not only celebrate it through the Octave of Easter - the feast of Divine Mercy, we become an Easter people, celebrating it at every Mass with every Holy Communion. We celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus with such great fervor because it is through Him that we have eternal life.

We do not receive something corruptible when we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. We receive Living Bread. The bread of Passover is unleavened bread; during Mass, when the priest says the words of Consecration, bread that is without life (unleavened) becomes for us Living Bread. Crushed wheat and grapes become for us, not just bread and wine, but the Body and Blood of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

When we do this in memory of Him, it isn't just a fond remembrance of the love Jesus had for us, but a re-membering, if you will, of what Jesus did for us. We not only remember in our minds, but through the power of Jesus' Words and though the actions of the priest 'in persona Christi', we are taken back to the Last Supper and to Calvary, to witness the fullness of what Jesus did for us. We are not sacrificing Jesus all over again, but are witnessing His once and for all time passion, death and Resurrection.

Why also His Resurrection? Because what we receive is incorrupt. David foresaw the cup from which Our Lord would drink and he foresaw His Resurrection. In  the Psalm read on Easter Monday, we hear,

"The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; thou holdest my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also dwells secure. For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit. Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.  Psalm 16:5-11 

The first lines of the Psalm reflect Jesus' Passion in Gethsemane. Jesus did not refuse the cup the Father gave Him and Jesus does not curse the cup. Instead, He blesses it because it is the path of life that leads to the Father in whose presence is fullness of joy. In the first reading at Mass on Easter Monday, it says of David,

"Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.  Acts 2:30-31

We must know that what we receive is incorrupt. We shall become what we eat. So, let us be that Easter people. Let us thirst for Him as He thirsts for us. Let us eat and drink and be merry, for it is the path of life that leads to the fullness of joy we will experience in the presence of the Father. Amen! Alleluia!

This Day of Days

I attended Mass again this morning as is my habit. Fr. Jonathan Raia presided and this was His first Easter Mass since his ordination. (Although he helped con-celebrate the Easter Vigil and did a beautiful job singing the Exultet. He was especially anointed in the giving of His homily this morning. My post today is a summary of His words to the best of my ability. May they bless you when you read them as they blessed me in their hearing.


THIS is the greatest day of the year. THIS day we participate in the Resurrection. It is not a matter of looking back and remembering what Jesus did - that He said and did good things and went about being nice. We don't just remember in the sense that we think nice thoughts about something and someone who lived a long time ago. We remember in the sense that what Jesus said and did is present - truly present - to us now, on this day, in 2010. It is not something we do but what God does in us on this Day of All Days..

We do not just remember Jesus like we remember our family members or friends who have died. We remember them in a spiritual way. But Jesus - JESUS is here with us - Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity and He feeds us with Himself at the table of the Lord. This is what we believe as Catholics. This is our faith.


In the Gospel reading for today, Mary has seen the empty tomb and believed. She returned to where the apostles were hiding and told them. Peter and John came running to the tomb in disbelief. But when they saw the burial clothes, they believed - before even seeing Jesus.


When Jesus finally appears to the apostles, they recognize Him. But He is somehow different. It is Jesus, but His resurrected Body is not the same. He can walk through walls, BUT - He eats and drinks with them.


Jesus has overcome DEATH. When we die, we see a body in a casket and we know it isn't right. We were not meant for death. But Jesus - JESUS changed all that. Jesus overcame death. He used the wood of the cross as a sort of battering ram to open the gates of hell where those who looked forward to the Messiah were waiting. When the cross broke through those gates, the gates of heaven opened and the dead rose from the grave, for death no longer had power over them.


Death no longer has POWER over US. Through our Baptism into His death, we rise with Him to new Life. Jesus, in His apparent failure - dying on the cross - is victorious, for His obedience to the Father undid the disobedience of our first parents who sinned. Jesus' is our Victory. He is the firstborn from the dead and we shall rise with Him on the Last Day.


But let us live THIS DAY in a way that looks forward to the Day of our Resurrection. Happy Easter! Amen? (many respond) "Amen." That's not very convincing . . . Amen? (all respond) AMEN!